The Chaoswar Saga: A Kingdom Besieged, A Crown Imperilled, Magician’s End. Raymond E. Feist

respite in the struggle, I think would be the best way to put it.’

      ‘I don’t understand,’ Child said, slightly petulantly. ‘What is this “respite”?’

      ‘We are by nature a race that struggles,’ he began as they walked across the broken land that signalled the edge of the Kingdom of Dahun and the beginning of what had once been the Kingdom of Maarg. ‘Ever since the Time Before Time, we have been born, have killed and eaten, or been killed and eaten, and we have been reborn. If we are fortunate, life experiences give us purpose and direction and we endure for a time.

      ‘Some rise to great power, and many serve willingly in exchange for protection and privilege. Dahun had many generals, many counsellors, many who were given the duty to administer his realm.’

      ‘Armies, Belog, tell me of armies.’

      ‘Other kings, rivals, also have their demesnes and as individuals struggle and contest with one another. Armies are a threat; if you attack me, I will defend myself, or if you annoy me, I will attack you. Maarg controlled a great kingdom, but he was afraid of Dahun and worried about the other kings in the Savage Realms. Other kings of the Second Kingdoms contended with Dahun, and with one another – alliances shifted constantly – and sometimes armies were unleashed, and wars were fought. But for long periods of time, armies were held in check. Large armies at the ready deter others from attacking.’

      ‘Ah,’ said Child, as if she understood. ‘The larger the army, the longer the respite.’

      ‘To a point. Armies require a great deal of support: food, weapons, a place for them to sleep.’

      ‘Explain?’ demanded Child.

      They walked down a widening gully until they came to three branching gullies, directing them uphill again. Belog knew that once this must have been a large pond or small lake with three feeding rivers. He spoke quickly of logistics and keeping an army fit and ready to fight. Of the need for support so that soldiers did not fall to killing one another in the old, Savage way.

      When she tired of the detail, she would interrupt with another question. ‘Tell me about war and victory and defeat,’ she instructed.

      He turned his narrative skills to best effect and launched into a long discourse on the nature of organized struggle while they climbed up the long slope towards the mountains beyond. Although there was much about this relationship he found tedious, his constant lecturing was honing the skills of his trade. He was required by Child’s endless questions to reach into his memory for facts and thoughts untouched in years.

      As an archivist he had been given the responsibility to help with the cataloguing and organization of whatever knowledge came to King Dahun: books, scrolls, devices, anything and everything that might prove useful to their demon lord. The archivists had become the closest thing to a brotherhood seen in the demon realm, for every night when they sat in their shared quarters, they would tell one another of those things they had encountered during the day.

      Belog had been among the first in his guild and possessed more knowledge than all but a few among them. He had a particular bent for associations, so he saw how knowledge discovered and shared by one might relate to knowledge discovered by another, in a way that was not immediately apparent to others. If any demon in the guild had been considered ‘senior’ or of highest rank, it was probably Belog, though those in his calling had never made much of an issue of this. By nature they were as close to being gentle as a demon could be.

      Cresting the ridge, Child said, ‘Where do we go now, Teacher?’

      He was secretly pleased to be called this, but answered, ‘It depends on where you wish to go.’

      She fixed him with a look that told him she was unhappy with that reply, but he was growing in certainty that it would take a situation of crisis proportions for her to kill him. If there was such a thing as affection in their race, these two had chanced upon it.

      ‘I was not mocking you, Child,’ he said, taking a moment’s rest upon a rock. The long trek was taking its toll. He knew his intelligence was beginning to decline. It would take weeks, perhaps as much as a month of not eating, but eventually he would devolve to a near-animal state and attack Child, even though it would be death for him to do so.

      He gazed up into her face and was again astonished at how she was evolving, becoming finer-featured and even more alluring. She must have been a succubus in her previous incarnation, he was almost certain of it now. From the way she was beginning to appear, he was sure she had spent a great deal of time on the mortal planes. Softly he said, ‘I think you have already decided where we are going, Child.’

      She smiled and then laughed aloud. It was a musical, beautiful sound. Then her expression turned sombre. She pointed to the east. ‘How long before the Darkness gets here?’

      ‘I do not know, Child. It appears to keep growing no matter what is done; fire, steel, magic have been brought against it, yet it happily embraces whatever it touches. A sharpened steel arrow, a falling shard of masonry, the cowering figure of a child, all are welcomed to oblivion by its touch. It is relentless, but unhurried.’ He paused and calculated. ‘I judge a few years, maybe five.’

      ‘But it will come?’

      ‘If we have learned anything of the Darkness it is that it is inevitable.’

      ‘Then we can not stop,’ she said. ‘If we travel for another five years, then in ten it will overtake us. Nothing can stop it.’

      ‘Everything the Darkness touches it dissolves, and even the stones scream in pain as they are rendered into nothing, yet the Darkness itself is silent, making no sound whatever. It is without substance, yet it consumes all. Yet no matter how much it consumes, it remains without substance. Nothing appeases it, nothing stops it. It just is.’

      ‘What do you think it wants?’ asked Child, still staring into the distance.

      ‘I can not pretend to know,’ said the old teacher with a sigh. ‘It is something of a speculation in itself that the Darkness may even be capable of wanting, which would require awareness. Does the wind want anything? Or the rain that falls? Or the fire that burns? Does the sand want as we tread upon it?’

      Fixing Belog with a strange expression, Child said, ‘The wind wants balance, the rain wants to seep as far down as possible, and the fire wants to breathe and grow’ Then she smiled a tiny smile and added, ‘I must confess I have no idea what the sand wants.’

      He was silent for a long while as he considered her words, then said, ‘Yet those are mere explanations of their nature and their reason for existence, not any concession to will and consciousness.’

      ‘Perhaps,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I will not be here when the Darkness arrives, no matter how far I must travel.’

      ‘Where will you go?’ asked Belog.

      ‘Tell me of Datum’s war on Maarg in the mortal realm,’ she demanded.

      He was surprised by the question, and a little annoyed that she had ignored his. Yet it was clear it was time to start moving again, heading into the now-ravaged former Kingdom of Maarg, looking for only she knew what, and along the way he would be expected to educate and, to a lesser degree, entertain her. And Child would hunt for and feed him.

      As existences went, outside the comfort of working on behalf of the King with the other archivists, this wasn’t a particularly unpleasant one, save for all the walking, he amended silently.

      As they continued, he told of the summoning of all the King’s forces, how his army was marshalled and every magic at his disposal was used to transport them to a world in the mortal realm, where the armies of Maarg, along with Sebran, Chatak, and other kings of the Second Kingdoms as well as chieftains and warlords of the Savage Lands had been fighting with a race known as the Star Elves. They were physically weak, mortal beings, but they had been cunning and used powerful magic effectively. Their soldiers could not stand against the combined might of five demon armies, but each demon had faced a dozen swords, and the demon legion had